Happy New Year

-
It is New Years Eve, well almost. It’s only 3 in the afternoon right now, so I guess it’s not technically the “eve” of anything, but it’s close enough. We have moved to our second house sitting location. We’re still in the same security estate, which was very convenient when moving our carload of stuff over! We have been enjoying this last day of 2011. Our friends brought some gifts back with them from Darin’s family, so the kids have been busy building Lego creations and making jewelry and we’ve all played a few rounds of Hi Ho Cherry-O, or Hi Ho the Cherry-O as Jori calls it. The kids have also enjoyed the special treat of riding bikes! Jori even learned how to ride a two wheeler this afternoon!

We were invited to a braai (cookout) tonight, but Tyson seems to be feeling a bit under the weather.  We’re hoping it’s just from a lack of sleep and that taking it easy for the day will be the cure. I guess we’ll see how he’s feeling in the morning. It would have been fun to get together with our friends from church, but I don’t mind being a bit of a homebody either. Darin is going to run out to the store in a bit to get some pita bread and then we’re going to make individual pizzas for dinner. Yum!

Last night we took the kids to Baobob for dinner. It is our favorite restaurant, but the kids have never been there. They were not very impressed with their first fine dining experience and kept asking why it was taking so long for the food to come. Darin was so impressed with his meal that he copied the description from the online menu and used it as part of his Facebook status : ) Thanks Pop and Gram for our belated Christmas dinner!

I think we are all eager to see what the year 2012 has in store for us. The first half of 2011 went more or less as planned; we sold our house, sold our stuff and moved to Africa. The second half has been a bit more unpredictable. We moved out here with certain plans and timelines in mind and so far none of the things we’ve planned on have come to pass. Instead of having a business with income to support our family, we have depleted all of our savings and are living off of borrowed money. This is both humbling and a bit ironic as the main reason we did the whole “business as missions” thing was so that we would not have to depend on the financial support of others to provide for our family. Instead of getting our kids to start a new school year in January, we are preparing to keep on with home schooling. Instead of growing closer as a couple, which is what we experienced during our 10 weeks here in 2008, we find ourselves drifting farther apart and struggling to deal with the stress of being around each other 24/7 and finding ourselves in very different roles than what we are used to. Instead of being heavily involved with local organizations and their care of orphans, we find that we are just kind of drifting and doing a little of this and a little of that and not feeling that our being here as made much of an impact at all. There are a lot of different reasons for this, some things that are totally valid and some that are just crappy excuses.

We don’t know what is in store for our little family in this next year, much less in this next month! We appreciate the prayers and words of support that so many of you send our way. Here’s to a Happy New Year!

Comments

Anonymous said…
jonna...happy new year to you too my sweet...we are gearing up for day 5 of people at the house.. i actually look forward to working.. ( : no.. we played hands and foot last night with corey and amy.. different rules.. missed you two.. we are into settlers of catan and have brian and michelle right up the road to come often to play.. its getting a little competitive which is a little less fun for me the one who likes peace, and likes to win... i made chicken enchiladas for dinner and feel like suzi homemaker.. play cards with your husband.. go for a walk..communicate, talk, hold his hand, give him your heart, encourage him, let him hear that you believe in him, that you trust his heart for your family, build him up.. and it will build you up at the same time.. still learning.. love laurie
January 1, 2012 at 4:01 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Connection and Community

-
Image
When we had made the decision to uproot our lives in the US and move to South Africa, I was so hungry for information about what living in South Africa would look like. We had been to South Africa several times as a couple, Darin had come on work trips, and we had spent 10 weeks here with our children. We knew some people, had been into various shops, and had a familiarity with the sounds of English being spoken with a variety of accents. However, there is a big difference between leaving home to visit a place for a few weeks or months and entirely uprooting your life in one place to start over in another. What were the schools like, would I have access to familiar ingredients to cook with, what about healthcare?  I scoured the internet to find stories about living in South Africa and found a few women who were more than happy to answer my questions, however random and weird they were. There was Annie, an American living in Pretoria, whose entire blog I read in one day and when Dar...
Read more

New friends

-
On Saturday, we finally met the DiCocco’s. I had first found out about Billy, Trace and their family through my friend Sarah, who had met them at Mars Hill church. Trace writes a blog, which I began stalking as soon as I knew we’d be moving to South Africa. Strangely enough, my other friend Sarah and I later figured out that the family I kept going on and on about used to be her neighbors! Such a small world. The DiCocco’s have been living near Johannesburg for several years doing ministry with a few different organizations. I loved reading through her blog, seeing the pictures, and imagining what our life might look like once we moved to South Africa. As our move got closer, I began to email Trace and she would answer all my crazy and not so crazy questions. It was so wonderful to have someone over HERE who used to live right near us and knew all about the transition process. Since we’ve been her, we’ve continued to email and we also made plans to meet up with them to check out a ho...
Read more

Family Fun Friday

-
Image
We have almost reached the end of the winter holiday. Tyson and Jori go back to school on Wednesday. We have some fun activities planned for the next few days, but we will also be cleaning bedrooms and setting out uniforms and lunch boxes. Let the school fun begin! Overall, it has been a fun holiday. Tyson and Jori have both had school friends over to play, we've made it to church twice, we've been out for pizza, had donuts, did some baking, and more. Friday, however, was probably the highlight of the school holidays for us. The day started with Jori losing her first tooth! Our baby girl is growing up. We had a few errands to run and took the kids with us. While Darin was busy at Cashbuild ordering supplies for an upcoming building project at TYB, Tyson, Jori and I went to Pick N Pay and King Pie for a little treat. We shared with Darin, of course. We spent a few hours at home, then headed out at 3 for our big adventure. We drove slowly and took a mini game drive on ...
Read more